A Sad Goodbye
A Short Story
Copyright 2011 by Emerald Barnes
Smashwords Edition
I stare at the man I love lying amidst the crisp white sheets of our bed. His brown eyes are quickly losing their luster, and it worries me more and more. He assures me that he will be fine, but his eyes don’t lie. They never have.
He coughs, and I jump. He looks at me and smiles weakly like I’ve just told a corny joke. He reaches for me, and I slide off of the chair and onto my knees beside the bed. He takes my hand in his. He feels cold, and I refuse to think of him as the man he used to be. Tears sting my eyes, but I won’t cry in front of him.
“Quit worryin’ about me,” he whispers, “and get to work.”
I look at the alarm clock and realize I should’ve left the house ten minutes ago. I can’t leave him because I’m afraid something will happen while I’m away. He coughs again, and I almost decide to stay.
A quick knock on the door startles me. “Sorry,” Marilyn says.
I turn around to see Zane’s sister standing in the doorway holding the car seat with Rose in it. She looks like she’s just rolled out of bed, and I can’t help but wonder if I look the same. I haven’t put any effort into anything I do since he was given his death sentence.
Marilyn says, “Why on earth are you still here? Get to work, Sara.” She uses her momma-voice on me as she sets baby Rose beside Zane.
I stand and stare at Zane who is watching Rose kick and giggle in her car seat. His eyes light up for a moment and then beads of tears form in the corners of his eyes. He’ll never get to see his niece grow up to be a beautiful young woman.
I lean over and kiss Zane gently on the forehead. “Kiss me like you mean it,” he teases. I smile briefly and kiss him. Even though he’s weak, he kisses me as passionately as he can which only breaks my heart.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.”
I smile weakly at him and walk out of the room. Marilyn follows me after telling Zane to watch Rose.
As I was slipping on my shoes in the living room, she asks, “How is he today?”
“Not too good. He’s in a lot of pain.”
She nods and a few tears escape her eyes. “He looks bad.”
I don’t want to acknowledge what she says in anyway, no matter how true it is. I gather my purse, phone and keys. I grab the door knob and stop before opening it. I take in a deep breath and say, “Call me if something changes.”
“I will.”
I bite my lip and walk outside into the warm, sunny day. If I could control the weather, it would be storming and lightening. I walk to my car, get inside, and drive to work.
I go through the same routine for two weeks. Marilyn has been great and stays with him while I work or buy groceries. She insists that I get out and do something normal, but there’s nothing normal about my life. I live in constant fear of that one phone call saying that there’s nothing to come home to but funeral preparations.
While I’m out buying groceries, my phone rings, and my heart stops. With shaky hands I fumble around in my purse. It’s Marilyn. I answer it warily.
“He’s tellin’ everyone goodbye.” She’s sobbing, and I drop my phone and sink to my knees in the middle of the store. A ten year old eyes me suspiciously while a young man wearing a blue vest with the store’s name on it, walks over to me.
“You all right?” he asks, worried.
I shake my head no.
“Is there anything I can do?”
I shake my head again. He stares for a moment and then walks away. I can’t cry. I can’t move, but I have to get home. I have to see him. I force myself to my feet, grab my phone and purse, and walk out of the store. I get in my car and drive home thinking about what I will find when I get there.
I throw open the door to our house, and the family’s in the living room. Most of them are crying, and I’m afraid I’m too late. Marilyn pulls me into her arms. I need supporting, but it feels like I’m the one supporting her.
“Am I –“ I can’t finish the sentence.
She shakes her head no but follows it up with, “He’s askin’ for people but hasn’t gotten around to you yet.”
He wasn’t even asking for me? I’m confused. “No,” I say.
“Mom’s in there right now,” she answers.
“Have you called the doctor?”
Having heard us, Doctor Milligan walks up to me. “Sara, I’m so sorry.”
“You have to do something!” I yell.
“You knew there wasn’t anything we could do. The cancer had spread. There wasn’t anything we could do,” he repeats.
Momma takes me in her arms. I didn’t even know she was there.
“We’ll get through this, sweetie,” she says, but I don’t believe her. It’s something all parents have to say.
I stare at Dr. Milligan like he’s the enemy, and at the moment, I feel like he is. He’s not even trying to help Zane. He hangs his head, and I wonder if it’s in shame or just to escape my piercing gaze.
Zane’s mom walks out of the room, crying. She says, “He wants to talk to Marilyn.”
My heart sinks. Why doesn’t he want to talk to me? I should be in there with him.
Mom says, “Give him time, honey.”
“Why isn’t he talkin’ to me?” My words are slurred as I sob.
“He will.”
“What if something happens before he gets to me?”
I feel like a blubbering child.
“You’ll get to talk to him. Don’t worry.”
I nod, and she leads me to the sofa. Two people stand and let us sit. Mom offers me a cup of coffee, but I can’t drink anything. I can’t think of anything but my Zane. The man I had married ten years ago. We were supposed to have more time. Why was God doing this? Why was he taking him away from me so soon?
I lay my head on Mom’s shoulder and cry. She offers me a tissue that quickly becomes unusable.
Time passes slowly, and he wants to see everyone but me. His brother, Chad, his dad, my dad, my mom, even Dr. Milligan. But when there’s no one else to see, he still doesn’t even ask for me, and I feel like my world is crashing in around me. I want to see my husband.
Eventually, Marilyn walks back to his room to check on him and comes back telling me that he has asked for me. Now that the time has come, I’m not sure what I’m going to say to him.
I walk, in what feels like slow motion, to our bedroom. I pause at the opened door and stare at him. He looks so fragile and pale. He’s a shadow of the man I married. Hot tears sting my eyes, and this is going to be hard. I can’t tell him goodbye. I refuse to.
Zane sees me and smiles. He coughs. I walk into the room, shutting the door for some privacy. I walk to him and kneel beside the bed. I take his cold hand in mine and press it to my lips.
“Sara,” he says weakly.
“Zane,” I whisper.
He smiles again, and it breaks my heart into a million little pieces. Tears roll down my cheeks, and he wipes them away.
“Don’t cry for me.”
“How can I not?”
“I won’t be suffering anymore.”
I never thought of it that way, but I can’t live without him. Maybe that’s selfish of me, but I can’t help it.
He laughs and says, “Do you remember our honeymoon?”
“Of course.”
“Hold on to those memories. Not these.”
I start crying despite trying to be strong for him. How was he facing this head on? He’s so calm.
He stares at me, smiles and says, “Sexy Momma.”
I laugh. His closes his eyes and laughs too. And then, he’s gone.
I stop laughing and stare at him. No. No. This isn’t right.
“Zane,” I whispered. “ZANE!” I yell and shake him. He can’t die. He can’t leave me.
Soon, I’m surrounded by family and loud sobs. Someone kneels beside me and holds me close as I cry.
We stand around the freshly dug grave as he’s lowered in the ground. The preacher says nice things about him, gives us some Bible verses to help with the pain, and says that he’s better off in Heaven than on this earth. Zane would agree, but I wonder why God hates me.
There’s a knock at my bedroom door. I scream for whoever that person is to go away but in walks Marilyn.
“Get out of bed, Sara.”
“Go away.”
“You’ve been here for two weeks. Zane wouldn’t have wanted this.”
I throw a pillow at her and scream again. She ducks out of the way and stares at me like I’m a child. I roll over and bury my face in the sheets that still smell like Zane. The door closes behind her.
A month down to the day. I sit on the couch and stare at the black television screen. I’ve just received a letter saying that the company I work for has to let me go due to my extended absence. I crumble the paper in my hand and toss it in the floor. I don’t need the job anyway.
My heart is missing. The man who held it is gone forever. There’s no getting it back. How can I get over something like this in a month? They’re all idiots! I throw the remote sitting beside me on the coffee table. It hits a figurine my mother gave me, and it shatters in tiny little pieces as it hits the hardwood floor.
I stand and walk into Zane’s office. It’s the first time I’ve been in there since he was diagnosed. Someone else has been there though, and I assume it was Marilyn. I figure she’s the one who’s been paying my bills for me lately. I need to thank her, but I don’t have the strength. I sit in his desk chair which squeaks. I look at the picture he has on his desk of Rose. I flip the picture over where I don’t have to look at the reminder of everything we wouldn’t be able to have together.
The office smells like old books, and I remember how he told me that it was his favorite smell, next to the perfume I wore. We had just started college then and had accidentally bumped into each other in the library. I was carrying a handful of books and so was he.
We were destined to meet that day. I felt it in my soul. My eyes tear up at the thought, and I’ve got to get out of there. I run out of his office and to our room. I change out of his t-shirt and into some blue jeans and the first shirt I grab out of the closet. I slip on some shoes, grab my keys and leave.
I don’t have a destination in mind. I just drive.
I end up at a bar called The Roadhouse. It’s the only bar in town, and I’ve never been here before. I park in the almost deserted parking lot. It’s only four in the evening, but I don’t care. I exit the car and walk into the bar.
I’m greeted with country music and loud laughter from two men in the back. The air is stale and smells of cigarettes. The place is dark. A juke box sits in the back of the building, near a stage for a live band. The wall to my left is lined with booths whose dark red leather seats have cracked. Round tables fill the center of the room. A small hallway on the other side of the bar on the left leads to bathrooms and a pool table judging by the signs.
I take a seat at the bar, two seats away from another patron whose head is resting on the bar and his hands are around his beer. The bartender is leaning against the back wall staring at me. He walks up to me and asks, “What can I get ya?”
“Whiskey.”
He snorts, grabs a glass and pours some into it. He slides it across the bar, and I stare at it. I don’t know if this will take my pain away, but I’m hoping it will numb me. I just need to escape for a little while. I pick up the glass, press it against my lips, and without another thought, drink it.
I cough as it burns going down, and the bartender laughs. If I wasn’t choking, I’d give him a piece of my mind. I finish off the whiskey in the glass. It’s a little better going down this time, but I still cough.
When I can actually talk again, I look at the bartender and say, “Another.”
He looks at me, and I can see the disapproval in his eyes as he pours me another shot. Without thinking about the first attempt of this, I down this shot in one, quick gulp. It tickles and burns my throat, but the effect is warming. I can already feel my mind relaxing.
“Another.”
Another disapproving look, and I try my attempt at the same. He shakes his head and refills my drink. This time the drink goes down a little smoother.
I have a feeling that what I’m doing is wrong, but I don’t care. I ask for another.
A few drinks later, my head is swimming. My thoughts are foggy, and I can only think of getting home safely. The bartender asks if there’s anyone he can call for me, but I tell him no. I’m fine.
He doesn’t believe me, but he doesn’t stop me when I stagger off of the stool and almost fall either. He doesn’t stop me when I can’t figure out whether to pull or push the door open, and he doesn’t stop me when I hurl in the bushes outside.
When I wake the next morning, I feel like my brain is beating against my skull, trying to break free. My mouth is dry, and I feel like I’ve eaten cotton. I look at the clock. It’s around eleven in the morning. I roll over again and bury my face in Zane’s pillow.
Last night’s memories come back to me in fragments. I barely remember driving home and getting in bed. I ease up and sit with my back against the headboard. I look down at my clothes, and I’m still in the jeans and t-shirt I wore to the bar. I smell of vomit.
I squint at the sunlight peeking through the navy curtains. I lean my head back against the board and close my eyes. I think about last night and how I didn’t feel any pain. It was nice to free my mind from all the thoughts and worries swimming around.
I crawl out of bed and stumble to the bathroom. I start the water for a bath and lean against the sink while it fills. My thoughts return to Zane and how much I miss him. My chest tightens, and tears sting my eyes. I open the cabinet and pull out a bottle of anxiety pills my doctor prescribed right after his death. I start to open it but set it aside. They don’t do anything but put me to sleep where I dream of him.
I strip off my clothes and sink into the hot water. I take in a deep breath before sinking underneath the water. I look up through the water and stare at the blurry ceiling. Already having the water in my eyes is keeping me from crying, but when I reach the surface, there won’t be anything to keep the tears from coming.
My lungs ache. I need to breathe, but I don’t see the point. I don’t want to live my life without him, without my heart. I hold my breath for a little while longer and find myself breaking the surface and taking in a deep breath of cold air which burns throughout my entire chest, but it’s also a relief to breathe. The tears start flowing which only makes my head hurt more.
After bathing and throwing on some clothes, I sit on the sofa and drink a glass of iced tea. I think of the summer evenings when the air was humid and the sun was sinking behind the clouds. The lightening bugs fly around the old oak tree disappearing and then reappearing in a new place around the tire swing swaying in the breeze. The radio plays softly in the background, and we drink glasses of sweet tea and talk about work.
Every time I try and think of his sweet face, I only see the pallid face staring back at me. I don’t want to remember him this way. I want to remember him happy and healthy. My Zane; the Zane I married.
A few hours later and I can’t take the memories anymore. I grab a box out of the hall closest and dump its contents on the floor. I take down every picture of Zane in the house and put them in the box. I set the box in the closest, grab my keys and leave. As I drive, I have only one thing on my mind. To be free of the pain.
I pull into the parking lot of the bar. I don’t get out but think about last night. It scares me that I don’t remember how I got home. So, instead, I drive to the liquor store. I go in and find a bottle of whiskey and buy it. The man behind the cash register looks like he could care less about anything going on. I wish I could be that way.
At home I pour some whiskey in a glass and take it to the bedroom. This is the last place I want to be, but I don’t want to drink in public again. Here, I can drink as much as I want without worrying about how I will get home or be under the scrutinizing eye of the bartender.
I turn on the TV. I can’t stand the quiet. I’m used to hearing Zane walking around or at least breathing softly beside me. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I don’t see how the pain will get any better.
I take a drink, and although it burns my throat, it feels warm running down my esophagus and into my stomach. Already I start to feel better. I down the last of it and pour another glass. I drink it with tears streaking down my face. I want to calm my mind. I don’t want to remember him drawing his last breath. I finish the whiskey and have another. Soon, I’m pouring another. My mind won’t shut off no matter how hard I try.
After another drink, my mind feels loose. The image of Zane on his death bed, telling me his last words becomes an almost happy thought. How he died telling me the first thing he said after we had just become man and wife and walked down the aisle. I smile warmly and pour another glass.
My mind feels free from the pain, and I like it.
Another few weeks go by, and I can’t live with the pain. I like it when there are only happy thoughts, so I keep a bottle or two for those times when it feels like my heart is breaking to pieces all over again.
I don’t know what day it is. I’m not even sure how much of this I’ve drank, but the bottle will soon be empty. I grab my keys off of the coffee table and stagger out the front door. The light is blinding, and I dig through my purse for my sunglasses. I almost fall off of the porch stairs but laugh and catch myself. I slip on the sunglasses I’ve found and walk to my car.
I open the door and fall inside. I giggle as I try and put the key in the ignition. Finally managing to put the key in its slot, I turn it, and the engine roars to life. I shut the door and back out of the driveway. A car honks at me as I pull out in front of it. I slip my middle finger up as an expletive as they drive around me, honking a few more times. I laugh and continue on towards the liquor store.
At the end of the road, I know I’m supposed to stop, but I don’t. What does it matter whether I stop or not? Life is too short not to have fun, so I gun it. I scream in excitement as I drive through the four-way and laugh hysterically when I make it across without hitting anyone.
I take a right on Maple out of the blue. I never go this way, but I feel like having an adventure. Eventually, I’ll end up where I need to be, but it’s a different route. I need different. I crave it.
At the first four-way on Maple when I’m about to make a left on 2nd Avenue, I see the white steeple first. I haven’t been to the church since Zane died. Instead of turning, I continue on straight. I don’t know what I expect, but I can’t stop myself from going.
The red brick building is quite large, and the small building beside it for the fellowship hall is just a little bit smaller. There are a few cars in the parking lot, so I pull in the parking lot fast and throw my car into park at the front door. I shut it off and step outside.
I stare at the white doors. I’m afraid that if I walk inside I’ll never come out again which is a ridiculous thought. It’s just a church. It can’t harm me. I walk under the porch covering and to the doors. My hand hovers over the brass door knob. I remember touching them that day and am overcome with a heaviness that almost pushes me to my knees. A few tears run down my cheeks, and I wipe them away.
When I feel like an idiot for standing there so long, I push open the doors. There isn’t anyone in the foyer, and I don’t hear anyone else around. I walk through the opening that leads in the sanctuary. The place smells musty and old, but it’s just been cleaned. The navy blue carpet has fresh marks where the tires on the vacuum cleaner have run over it. The pews are separated into three sections. I walk down the aisle and find myself standing on the altar in front of the giant cross hanging on the wall.
“How could You?!” I yell at the cross. “Why would You take him away from me?!”
I don’t get a reply, and I didn’t expect one. I don’t even know why I’m here. I feel stupid for yelling at a cross hanging on a wall. I can yell at God at home in my bedroom.
I fall to my knees but not in prayer. I don’t have the strength to stand any longer. I need another drink because my mind is becoming too clear. I can actually think again, and I don’t like it. I want my brain to shut off.
“You should’ve let him live. You should’ve answered my prayers. Where were You when I needed You?!”
I fall on my face, burning my forehead on the carpet. I don’t care. I just want Him to know how angry I am. I roll on my side and curl into a ball. I cry like I cry every single day. I really need something else to drink.
I don’t know how long l lay like that, but someone comes up to me and lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. I shrug away, but whoever it is doesn’t move their hand. I hear them mumble something.
“What?”
They ignore me and keep mumbling. I realize it’s a prayer. I roll away from them and get to my feet. I see the pastor sitting on the floor, still praying. It frustrates me.
“I don’t need your prayers!” I yell at him.
Without looking at me, he says, “I think you’re wrong.”
I want to scream at him to shut up, but I don’t. I just stare at him, anger coloring my vision.
He stands to his feet. He’s not in his usual suit and tie. He’s wearing blue jeans and an orange Hawaiian print shirt with brown loafers. His gray hair is neat and in place, and his blue eyes are sympathetic and somehow comforting. I look away and say, “I need to go.”
“Wait,” he says as I’m about to step off of the altar.
I stop and give him the opportunity to speak, but I don’t turn around and face him.
“I know this is hard,” he starts, and I step on the first step. I don’t want to hear what he’s about to say. “Please. Just hear me out.”
My legs feel like gelatin anyway, so I take a seat. He sits beside me.
“I know it feels like God has deserted you. He took away the love of your life. Zane was a good man.” I cringe at the past tense. “He hasn’t deserted you.”
“Then why didn’t He let him live?” I ask angrily, but I also want answers.
“I don’t know.”
I feel like running out of the church. I really need another drink. I want to yell and scream and blame the pastor for everything, but it isn’t his fault. I’m rational enough to know that. I fight back more tears.
“Sara, listen. God had a good reason even though we don’t know what it was. I know this pain will eat at you, and you can’t let it take over. It looks like you’ve already let it in.”
I wonder what I look like, and I’m sure he can smell the whiskey on my breath. Suddenly, I’m embarrassed. I run my hand through my hair and hope that it doesn’t look too terrible. I also think about what he’s said. I have let the pain eat away at me slowly. I let it overcome me, and I’m not sure I can find my way back. Or if I even want to.
I stand up and look at the foyer. I can leave right now. I want to, so why aren’t I? I sit back down and start crying. He lays a consoling hand on my shoulder and prays. At first I’m uncomfortable with it because I’m angry with God. Then, I feel like maybe the pastor has the right idea. What if God is the only one who can help me through this? That’s what they teach us in church anyway. Maybe I have gone about this all wrong. I soon find myself praying too. I pray for strength and peace of mind. I pray for help because I don’t want to turn back to the bottle.
After our prayer, I feel better, sober. I know this isn’t going to be easy, and the preacher invites me back to his house so I can talk to his wife over a cup of coffee. I follow him, hoping this will be my way back from the hole I’ve thrown myself into.